Power Rankings: Episode 27 – S4

JDT: The only reason we’re not talking about the Alaouites in past tense is because Thomas Peters is a fraud.

Leman:

Mamluks are the only civilization to get a 51st place threepete. Congratulations!

JDT: Let's set the record straight: Burgundy has a chance to straight up die next episode. Dijon is in the black, just awaiting an English melee unit to waltz in, and Nancy is pretty vulnerable to English assault too. While the PRs don’t have the confidence that Henry will finish the job, it's increasingly obvious that Burgundy, like real life, will not last in anything but red.

Reformer:

Royal Hungary…

Why…

Well, if it isn’t my favorite city-state! Mostly because of novelty value. And they won’t have that for long either, ‘cause Burgundy is about to usurp the title of “most recently became a city-state”. Truly even Royal Hungary’s failures are far from noteworthy. Now Royal Hungary simply waits, until Bavaria tires of having a pet in the shape of Csejte and finishes off the rumped city-state of Hungary. That’s it.

Reformer:

Makhnovia had a bunch of excitement this episode. Yes, a bunch, as in, one bunch. Namely, they declared war on Royal Hungary! These guys really are good at smelling blood. Unfortunately there’s just one tile through which these two rumps can fight. But at least Makhno will get to sate his bloodlust once more by killing off some excess units (is that why he’s sent so many units off to Kazan?). You don’t want to see the man when his bloodlust boils over.

ECH:

Kalmyks received a small pointless coalition of far-off civs. The Kalmyks are still very happy with life. That’s about it, sorry Kalmyk-heads.

Shaggy:

On the plus side, they have retaken their capital. On the other hand... gestures wildly everything else is kind of going to shit. The initial Gogurt invasion seems to have eased up just a bit but losing ground to Mongolia at the same time feels like salt on the wound. In the most Daji way possible, Shang has turned a tentative stabilization into a bigger problem. I get that it's kind of your thing, but maybe sacrificing citizens isn't the best move after your neighbors have already done such a great job of killing them already? Like, take the hint already, Daji.

Nathan:

Despite what should be an overwhelming invasion, Eswatini seems to be holding their own. The terrain and excessive citadels makes the defense manageable and their navy is more than a match for what Ndongo is bringing. Some think that they’re just about to crack but I think there’s a bit more fight left in this dog.

Reformer:

After some mild excitement in recent episodes, Tehuelche finally has a well-deserved peaceful episode for recuperation. After all, hunkering down in the Cone. is hard work. Let Tehuelche breathe for a while. Maybe half a dozen episodes or so. And then they’ll be up and ready for some more excitement! For example, they could get beat up by Bora-Bora! Ain’t that a treat.

Reformer:

Guess what? These guys are Finnish. Let that sink in. And they’ll be Finnish for a while at this rate…

CelestialDalek:

Since Bukhara was not mentioned a single time in the last episode, who wants a fun Bukhara fact in lieu of any analysis? I sure as hell don’t!

JDT:

The Visigoths drop by two as things don’t look anywhere near springtime or daisies for them. On the bright side, they might actually finally flip back Asturica. On the downside, the Faroenese and English are still battering their coasts like a bull. Emerita is still vulnerable, with a giant Faroese army coming through. The English look depleted, but still can pretty easily batter and harass their coastlines. And let's be real here - the Visigoths are ghosts when it comes to mattering on the global scale. To be an Invisible, one must have no impact on global affairs. Like the Visigoths.

ECH:

No mentions for Seneca this last episode, an unfortunate fact when you add in that with the demise of Florida, Seneca is now at the bottom of North America’s rankings. That being said, even with a mere five cities and continually bad stats, with the Thule war this part we again see Seneca evade any consequences for their performance from the top tier civs who ought to be delivering a comeuppance. This apparent defensive aspect of their character is probably to blame for their moderate rise this episode, as barring a sudden rise in competence from the Faroese, it’s hard to envision an immediate threat for Seneca… but it’s never healthy to feel too safe, is it?

Leman:

Tiwanaku bent but did not break this episode, and given how strong Bora-Bora looks that is quite impressive in and of itself. It’s also a little sad that that is impressive, given how powerful Tiwanaku used to be. It’s unlikely that Tiwanaku will ever reobtain their former glory but I’m also starting to doubt that Bora-Bora will be able to make real inroads into the Tiwanaku core. From a viewing standpoint at least, it’s exciting to see the top powers be so dynamic! It’s only 340 turns in and we’ve seen three former superpowers fall apart (Shang, Tiwanaku and Pueblo). And that sucks if you’re a Tiwanaku fan but it is very fun to watch if you’re not.

Nathan:

Mongolia rises a bit as they retake what they lost to Shang and there’s a good chance they’ll be able to keep it up too with Goguryeo’s help. Beyond that… well, we’ll just have to see how long it takes one of their neighbors to pick a fight again.

Cloudy:

Still nothing new to report from the Qarmatians. Expectations for you were high. Please do something.

Orange:

Mog continues to have decent enough stats and refuses to do anything with them. They should be hopping on the eSwatini train while they still can but are they gonna do that? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Well, I’ll be surprised at least, and I hope I am surprised in the next part.

Cloudy:

One of the longest running wars on the cylinder ended this episode when Bavaria made peace with Royal Hungary and received Gaziura in the peace treaty. Receiving a twelve population city is a large windfall for a smallish civ like Bavaria, and while it will be difficult to defend, it is at least reachable through Bavaria’s own borders. It also leaves Bavaria at peace for the first time in centuries, finally bringing an end to a punishing series of wars that nearly broke Ludwig’s spirit. All in all, this turn of events improves Bavaria’s odds, but only a little—it would still take a miracle for Bavaria to join the same European tier as England and Latvia.

ECH:This season's Caribbean Crusader is in the sort of tricky spot expected of a civ from this region: their core has too low stats; they don’t seem to have the land or naval army to compete with their true rival neighbours; and their biases are a tad too passive to escape the situation. In the aftermath of Florida’s elimination, especially having not razed their rewards in the end, perhaps there’s scope for improvement in the future, but when proper powers like New Holland and Mexico could at any time deal a pretty damaging blow, I feel us rankers are erring on the side of caution on Taino’s chances henceforth.

Orange:

Honestly Nivkh is solely held up by their stats, because they shouldn’t be this high given how strong their neighbors are and how there is just, no way out of their position. They really have a rough position, and I don’t really believe they can get out at this point.

ECH:

Well, a bit of a mixed bag here. The amount of troops wasted on a lake-attack into Thules Ontarian city is certainly nothing to celebrate, especially when those forces would’ve had great purpose pushing back the Pueblo assault further. On the flipside, well, the Pueblo have seemingly been pushed back, despite their capital being citadelled and the multiple stat advantages possessed by Osage’s war rival! This twist of fate should not be understated when it comes to the expectations of this war we all had, although I wouldn’t say the danger has passed yet. It may be premature, but at this point Mexico may genuinely be the greater threat to Osage than Pueblo! Do the Osage really have any growth opportunities left? I must admit my doubts, but stranger things have happened over the seasons so I hope they keep up the good fight.

CelestialDalek:Need I remind you, the Khoshuts are still in the game. Not still in it as in still within winning distance (they could still I guess) but they aren’t eliminated yet. And really, they’re in a decent position to keep being alive. The Afsharids and Vijayanagara don’t pose very formidable threats, and they outtech Siam, the Dzungars, and obviously Bukhara. If they hadn’t given up two cities to the Dzungars for no reason they’d probably be top dog of this region, but alas they senselessly got rid of Lhasa because they felt like it.

Reformer:

Ikko-Ikki does their best to snipe that one Pueblo city in Hawaii, but alas, big brother Goguryeo gets there first, leaving Ikko once again empty-handed. It truly is disappointment after disappointment for Ikko recently. Which is a real shame, considering how strong they started, always bullying the stronger Shang. Now Shang is collapsing and Ikko is a shadow of its former self. If you could go back, would you? Or would you accept your fate with grace? I get the feeling Ikko would go back. They feel like the desperate type. But that’s not a real option they have. Instead they will slowly wither away in Goguryeo’s shadow. Which isn’t too different from how they were perceived when they were relevant. Even when they fought Shang, it was often alongside Goguryeo. When they fought Zheng, it was alongside Goguryeo…well, for a while, at least, and when Goguryeo abandoned Ikko, Zheng proved monstrous. But Ikko can’t be upset at Goguryeo - they don’t wear the pants in this relationship. They just do whatever Goguryeo wants - and suffer for it, time and time again, while Goguryeo grows stronger. We all know how this tale ends.

CelestialDalek:

At long last, something happened to Vijayanagara this episode. And shockingly, it’s good for them. They declared war on Singapore, and so far have captured two cities! Unfortunately, they don’t have the forces to go on to a third and capture the strategically important Samut Songkram, and even more unfortunately Singapore has more reserves to keep the fight going and potentially flip one of those cities back. This isn’t going to be the most eventful war on the cylinder, but it’s going to be exciting to see what happens next.

Cloudy:

Unfortunately, Kanem-Bornu is not having much luck finishing off the Mamluks. Not that we ever predicted they were likely to succeed, mind you. We did however calculate that thanks to their unique ability, they will be very difficult to invade without the use of airplanes. Which means they’ll be around for a little while longer I guess.

ECH:

Very little to report on Siam, except maybe for the fact that even from this side of the front, the Khoshuts can no longer really be considered a joke, which is unfortunate for their prospects to be sure.

Reformer:

Ecuador’s a bit hard to judge this episode. Sure, they’re making the right moves, beating down on a Tiwanaku on the brink of collapse, but at the same time, somehow Ecuador hasn’t gotten more than one city out of this war so far. Tiwanaku’s reputation as an indestructible fortress remains, and is reinforced, even. I mean all Ecuador is doing is throwing the country’s entire adult population at the enemy in hopes of getting more than one city. Ecuador NEEDS this to have any hope of holding against Mexico and/or New Holland when these actually competent civs come knocking. And Tiwanaku is just acting so damn stubborn. It’s sad really. It’s not like Tiwanaku has any chances of victory at this point. It becomes about spite. They just want to drag down Ecuador (and Bora) as much as possible while they crumble to dust. I admire the strength of principle but from Ecuador’s point of view it’s just depressing. Gabriel Moreno can feel his chances slipping through his fingers…

ECH:

More like Sad-a-D’mt, amirite?! No but for real, Saba is truly an awkward bastard of a civ to rank, and I think most of us have reached a point of resignation with them. Considering the troubles of their early turns, we all know Makeda is plenty capable of doing a rapid turnaround but dear god, they’ve spent up so much goodwill. Kanem-Bornu and Mogadishu have both seemingly been proven as not being instant wins and every other option (save a largely pointless elimination of the Mamluks if they desired) seems even harder, so it’s truly shape-up time, lest Saba ends up dropping past the halfway mark.

Leman:

Pontus is a dork. I don’t like them because they could be cool but aren’t. They are a civ that could break out and become a Mexico or a Latvia or Thule or one of those civs that are really strong but not quite there. They could go after most of their neighbors. Qartmatians suck. Bavaria and Royal Hungary are weak. Mamluks are just a free city just sitting there. A war with Afsharids would be rough but at least it would be fun and probably catapult one of these nerds into relevancy. But, instead they just stand there.

Orange:

Noongar sadly peaces out with Palawa right before they bring in a renewed offensive. Really, Noongar needs a win right now. They have been beaten up so much this entire game and have just been fighting so hard but they just can’t get any major wins out. When they were winning against Singapore they got attacked from behind. A constant struggle against a myriad of stronger forces and yet still coming out well. But at some point that’s gonna start to crumble unless they can get their stats up more and take a few cities.

Reformer:

Bad news for Pueblo this episode. Let’s start with the easy stuff. Goguryeo came, saw, conquered, and left. Puebloan Hawaii is no more, and in its place, Goguryeo has mmmostly united the island chain. Ikko-Ikki has one of the islands unfortunately. But back to Pueblo. Losing another set of islands is pretty painful, and further consigns Pueblo to the mainland, with fewer and fewer maritime opportunities. The walls are slowly closing in…and in the meantime, they’re achieving very little on land. The war against Osage has stalemated, thanks to similar production and difficulty of reinforcement (for Pueblo, anyway). Pueblo should in fact consider themselves fortunate that sizable portions of the Osage army are getting distracted by Thule and Taino colonies. Otherwise, the front might look quite different, and rather negative for Pueblo. The war will continue to be in flux…Osage’s distractions become stronger, allowing Pueblo to strike, or those distractions could end abruptly, allowing Osage to capitalize on Pueblo’s reinforcement difficulties to capture some cities instead. Guess we’ll just have to see!

Orange:

England goes up a bit as their untimely timed war against Burgundy turns in their favor and they’re knocking at the doors of Dijon, with the power to go all the way I think. The only issue is that this war has distracted them from their invasion of the Visigoths, and they really need better boats to slice through the Visigoth fleets. Luckily, the Visigoth counter push against Asturica will go as it always does, because the Visigoths suck.

Cloudy:

The Dzungars are at a crossroads, a defining moment that will determine whether they emerge from the current conflict awash in glory, or suffer a decisive defeat from which they might never recover. Throughout episode 27, they accomplished a dramatic and stunning push into Selkup territory, humbling a former top 5 power and causing a shadow of doubt about that civilization’s long-term potential. Three major cities fell to the Dzungar advance, including the former capital of Kazakhstan. But danger looms in the immediate future. Off screen at the end of the episode, the Selkups recaptured two of those three cities, including Astana, and the stats reveal that while the Dzungars led in military score coming into this episode, the Selkups have now overtaken them. The Selkup army is replete with units a generation more advanced than those fielded by the Dzungars. It seems obvious that if the war goes on for much longer, the Dzungars might walk away with nothing—or worse, with less than they started with. But if Galdan Khan can flip back Astana and Al’myak, then make peace, the Dzungars will be well positioned to usurp the Selkups’ place as the kings of western Siberia. Until we know for sure which way events will unfold, we haven’t moved the Dzungars away from rank 20. But make no mistake, after episode 28 they are likely to move—and that move could be in either direction.

Leman:

Afsharids is a dork. I don’t like them because they could be cool but aren’t. They are a civ that could break out and become a Mexico or a Latvia or Thule or one of those civs that are really strong but not quite there. They could go after most of their neighbors. Qarmatians suck. Bukhara and Khoshuts are weak. Kalmyks are just free cities just sitting there. A war with Pontus would be rough but at least it would be fun and probably catapult one of these nerds into relevancy. But instead, they just stand there.

Leman:

Apparently, Ume-Sami is our biggest winner this week and nobody really knows why? I think it's because civs like Pueblo and Noongar are struggling and Ume-Sami still has good stats, but really I don’t know.

Cloudy:

Rome hasn’t done anything lately, but they keep climbing as other civs formerly in the tail end of the top 20 start to take some hard knocks. We don’t know where Rome goes from here though, so we’re really just wondering when it will be their turn.

Leman:

I struggle with Kazan because they seem so extreme. They look solid on the minimap with their good city count, and have a really great production score for their position. But on the other hand Kazan is kinda empty, which is really bad when your neighbors are Latvia and Selkups, and your territory is a bunch of flat Russian steppe. Plus, Kazan’s tech is horrible. They have 44 technologies. Thats 21 behind Wahgi! Or more relevantly 10 behind Selkups and 8 behind Latvia. Which just makes me wonder, where is that production going? It’s not going into units, it’s not going into science infrastructure, it’s not going into wonders. Is it going into gold? The more Kazan continues like this, the less I like their position.

Nathan:

Singapore slides a rank this week as Vijayanagara renews their offensive and takes a few outer cities. They just can’t catch a break. Their rank might have fallen further had they not made a big show of flipping one of Mexico’s cities. It’s nothing they can’t recover from but they’re unlikely to be going on any grand offensives in the near future.

Reformer:

In the news today: the gunpowder armies of Ndongo are very slowly making gains against the medieval armies of Eswatini. Ndongo’s troops have barely reached the population centres of Big Bend and Mbabane. At sea, the Ndongo navy is taking severe losses, as the Eswatini navy advances, even raiding Nhlagano.

…

How the hell is that the description for a top 15 power fighting a bottom 10 power (dead civs not included)? Ndongo is so embarrassing. There’s no way the terrain is that bad. Losing at sea is kind of understandable at least, since Eswatini has a lot more coastal cities and thus coastal production. That part was to be expected. But Ndongo has an era’s worth of tech advantage on land. How is this war so painful. Be better, Ndongo, earn your top 15 spot!

Reformer:

Thule’s just vibing in their remote corner of the world. Statistically, Thule is doing as well as ever :)

Meanwhile, their colony on the Great Lakes is fighting for its fucking life. Good thing the aforementioned lakes are in the way of the Osage army, entirely cockblocking the Osage invasion.

What should Thule even do? They’re worse than Yellowknives in every conceivable way. Maybe Thule could hope to industrialize quickly, or reach a powerspike like planes, but these are such pipedreams. Not that Thule would do such a thing as dream, anyway. Ambition-less hacks, I tell ya.

Shaggy:

I am once again requesting that Sierra Leone not drift around and rest on their laurels. Random DOWs (holy wars, sure) do not an emperor make. Even the PR team is amazed that we're moving them up a rank this week, it feels dirty. Maybe they're just keeping the Alaouites around as controlled opposition for domestic political gain? They're autocrats now, autocrats do that, right?

CelestialDalek:

Now that the war with Noongar is over, Palawa has no interesting wars to completely blunder through and throw away a victory despite a technological advantage. Yay for them! I should probably stop ranking them so highly since they keep shitting the bed in wars but fuck it. Also, they are now an autocracy. Hooray for dictatorships.

ECH:

Ah, Latvia. This is their 9th PR in a row clinging within the 9th-11th range of ranks, and I think that’s a bit of a telling fact on the general perception of them amongst rankers: “Yeaaaaah, I guess they go in the top 10, but like, really?”. Now, they could start a campaign against one of their weaker neighbours and probably secure their place at the top, or fail such a campaign and get ranked lower. They have a record of both. But in the absence of that kind of movement-justifying event, Latvia is likely to exist in the near-10th limbo of natural rank jostling and little else.

Leman:

My hot take is Mexico is not and kind of never was a top ten civilization. They’re like a 11-13th place civilization. Which is really good, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like I need something more out of them. Right now Mexico’s big selling point is that huge army and a lot of weak targets they could march that army into. Pueblo, Osage, Ecuador, and Taino are all weak husks and easily could be taken advantage of.

Instead, Mexico is out here getting their cities flipped by Singapore. Embarrassing.

CelestialDalek:

It’s fairly sensible to wonder if it is, as they say, “joever” for the Selkups. They left their southern front completely deserted and are now paying the price, with a Dzungar incursion having taken a chunk of what used to be the Kazakh core. Astana, Almaty, Al’myak, all flipped. But the Selkups have one thing that the Dzungars do not: tech. For the Dzungar military, muskets are cutting-edge tech given only to the most elite soldiers. For the Selkups, they’re obsolete junk. Vonya is already fighting back and eating at Dzungar’s cities, starting to dent Hami and encroaching on Manas. After the initial tide has run against them, it looks like the Selkups firmly have the upper hand. This is definitely going to be one of the most interesting wars to watch next episode.

Leman:

Bora-Bora’s push seems to be stalling slightly. I’m not really sure if that’s because the second front they opened up against Palawa ended up being a massive unit sink, or if Bora-Bora is just entirely incompetent on land, but either way, this is not a great look. That being said, Tiwanaku gets weaker and weaker with each turn and it’s only a matter of time before they buckle and break under Bora-Bora’s pressure.

Cloudy:

After rebuilding from its past wars, Zheng is looking quite beefy again. Their stats are improving and they have many weak neighbors. Wahgi can still crush them, of course, but Wahgi could crush anyone. So where will Koxinga direct his wrath next? We aren’t sure, but we’re raising Zheng a couple ranks already, just in case.

ECH:

New Holland re-enters the top 5, a status symbol they’ve won and lost 11 bloody times this game (if you count their Part 0 prediction of 4th), which feels like some sort of record for this time in a season. In a way this shouldn’t be any form of surprise; production is king amongst stats and New Holland is one of four civs on a higher plane than any other civ, in the 1100-1400 range whilst the next closest civ rests on 791. Hell, the fact that that exact civ is 4th while New Holland is ‘only’ 5th might be telling of the fact that reservations certainly persist when it comes to New Holland still, their thoroughly mediocre war record and inability to display any type of carpet slowing them down, especially when their neighboring rival is being slowly disassembled by a much less well-regarded civ like Ecuador. I think I’m speaking for most when I say we’re all waiting for New Holland to make a play for expansion into the Caribbean or for some sort of transcontinental play for West Africa, which would certainly be fun to watch.

Orange:

The Yellowknives continue to hold steady near the top, still got great stats and a great position they just gotta use it. Especially now as Pueblo is fumbling hard, they’re in prime position to place themselves on top of the continent. An invasion of Thule or Pueblo would do them well…

Orange:

The Faroes are slowly starting to slip, I think this is the first time they’ve been in 4th on stats in a long long time (or maybe they were also 4th last time and I didn’t notice Idk). Their happiness is back into the negatives (-13), and they have failed to make further progress against the Visigoths. Is this the start of their decline? It’s hard to say, but they still haven’t figured out how to succeed in war yet, and that’s going to be a major problem going forward.

Leman:

It’s extremely close up here at the top of the PRs, but Wahgi takes a narrow second. Wahgi’s stats are monstrous and the gap between them and other civs seems only to grow. However, between their powerful neighbors and Goguryeo actively conquering one of their neighbors Wahgi takes a  slight dip. That being said, for me if Goguryeo can’t turn their conquests into stats or if Wahgi turns around and axes Palawa or someone, I expect Wahgi to take back that first place spot easily.

Leman:

Goguryeo is back on top. They’ve clearly fallen behind Wahgi in stats but make up for that with two extremely effective wars. One with Pueblo, cleaning up Hawaii and a second with their long time nemesis Shang. This military success gives them the edge for me. Plus, Wahgi’s stat lead should start shrinking because Goguryeo is going to continue to grow as Shang continues to crumble. Not a whole lot else to say here, Goguryeo is ruthlessly efficient.